In the past teams such as Montclair have rotated players into both Bloomfield summer loops, sometimes putting the varsity holdovers with a group at the college and the mostly JV-oriented roster in the high school-based summer league.

Regardless of which of the local  summer basketball leagues a school plays in on a particular evening, the progression from the Bengals’ ‘Team Camp’ right into the summer leagues serves as a valuable, annual process in order to get what is hoped to be a high volume of basketball exposure for many players, some of whom may have other locales to head to on certain evenings, including for possible baseball or football-related commitments.

“Our annual ‘Team Camp’ is always a great way to kick off the summer.,” Passero noted. “It was held at Bloomfield High School over four days and featured eight teams in Bloomfield, Bayonne, Hudson Catholic, Millburn, Dwight-Englewood, North Star Academy, North Bergen, and Caldwell.

“Each team played seven games over the 4-day camp, which gives everyone a great opportunity to get quality competition early in the summer.”  

NOTES- Bloomfield’s Perrotta carries a 4.25 GPA while taking multiple advance placement classes. He has three older sisters – Grace, Gina and Anna, who were all outstanding athletes for the Bengals. Grace, who played soccer and basketball and ran track at Bloomfield, is in the Marines and was recently stationed in Okinawa…The current Bengal rising seniors have all been playing together since at least middle school and are good friends off the court as well…Passero, a former scholastic standout football and basketball player at Verona where he played for Brunner, became his mentor’s assistant coach in 2009 before taking over the reins of the program in the 2018-2019 season…Brunner, who is now retired from teaching, coaching and as a school administrator, went from Bloomfield to serve as an AD at both Mountain Lakes and Morris Knolls….The current Bengals did lose a prospective impact rising sophomore when Assad Majuta, who averaged 7.1 ppg. last winter as a promising freshman, transferred to Shabazz where he will play for the Group 1 state champion Bulldogs, who have been elevated up tto Group 2 for the next winter season.      

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